Obama agenda: Another health-care delay

“In another setback for President Obama’s health care initiative, the administration has delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care,” the New York Times says. “The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family. But under a little-noticed ruling, federal officials have granted a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014.

The AP: “President Barack Obama is directing his national intelligence director to form a panel of outside experts to review government intelligence and communications technologies. It’s one of the reforms Obama promised last week to help instill public confidence in U.S. surveillance programs exposed by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. In a memorandum Obama signed Monday and released by the White House, he asks intelligence director James Clapper to empanel outside experts to review U.S. surveillance technologies, particularly how the government can maintain the public trust and how such surveillance affects foreign policy at a time when more and more information is becoming public.”